BFFs

The din of the coffee shop was a little overpowering.  The Baristas whipped up espressos and the lunchtime chatter droned.  

I sat by myself, absorbed in Business Week.  Every time I felt a draft, when the door opened, I scanned the room for Cecile.

She caught me off guard.  She looked young and hip with her Burberry jacket and scarf, but Cecile has always been stylish.

Cecile is Cary's mother.  Cary was my best friend in high school.  And middle school.  Cary was my best friend for about 15 years.  So when did it all end?  Or did it?

I remember sitting in Mrs. Pickeral's 8th grade Latin class the day we were all informed that Cary's father had died.  I had been on the phone with her the night before and neither of us knew.  He had been killed in a hit and run.  When Mrs. Pickeral informed the class, I put my head down on my desk and wept.  Alex Reithmiller whispered audibly that I was looking for attention.  I could only think of Cary, and how much she loved her father, how good he was to her, in comparison to my own relationship with my father.

Cary was exceptionally bright.  She skipped the 4th grade and never looked back.  I don't believe Cary ever received lower than a B+ on a report card.

Cary and I weathered many a storm from middle school to college.  Divorces, remarriages, deaths, boyfriends, successes, failures... we made it through all of these together.

What we couldn't traverse was the distance wedged between us in college.  Cary went to Princeton; I went to Randolph Macon Woman's College, Miami of Ohio, Washington & Lee and Mary Washington. My depression had blossomed into full fledged mania and our friendship could not withstand the lashing.

Cary was diligent and hardworking.  She applied herself more than anyone I have ever known.  I was despondent and unsure.  I waffled between being absorbed by a class and total self-indulgence.  Cary studied.  I drank.  Cary committed herself.  I searched endlessly for the next available thrill.

I have never stopped loving Cary.  I lost sight of who we are, but I never stopped loving who she was.  I do not know if there is anything left of the girl I was once loved so dearly but having spent the afternoon with her mother, and talking to her about Cary, I get the impression that she is close to the same person.

Cecile continually ran her fingers through her ginger hair, trying to brush it aside.  She talked easily and smiled effortlessly. It felt like being with Cary, if only for an hour.  Smart, comely women.  Lexington certainly turned them out.

I miss sleepovers and sock hops.  I miss Spanky's and the Christmas Parade.  I miss football games, and wild parties out at Lyle McClung's.  Mostly, mostly, I miss Cary.  I miss the quiet confidences and the subtle nuances of pubescent girlhood.

Somewhere, underneath the guarded psyche of a heart surgeon is the girl I once loved, my best friend ever.  I wish she could still come out to play.

where I want to be

In college, I suppose I felt as though I would pursue a PH. D. and teach at the collegiate level.  After college, I surmised that I would attend graduate school and become a writer, a journalist or an interior designer.  Now that I am a mother and wife, I am perplexed.  I am unsure of what to dream.

I have a friend from college who followed her dreams; she met with limited success and is now scraping by.  I've lived well, married well and have two beautiful, well adjusted children and yet when I encounter this friend, I feel a failure.

It is not as though she is outwardly judgmental.  She does not rebuke me for my choices.  Yet, she asks what I have been doing and I watch as her eyes turn to a dull black when I explain my life.  I bore her.  She is careful, political with her inquiries.  I am dull.  I am patent.  I have not lived.

Do I feel this sting because secretly, latently I believe the same about myself?

What is it I would've chosen to do?  Act?  Write?  Legislate?  Am I smart enough to have made it on The Hill?  Persuasive enough to have made a living writing?  Believable enough to have acted?  I don't know.  Did any of those professions hold enough intrigue for me to follow them?  I am here.  THIS is what I do... I raise children and cook meals and love a man and drive to and fro and tend house... and occasionally write this blog.  Is that enough?  Is it enough for my friends?  For me?

This is not Sex And the City.  I am not Julie from Julie and Julia.  I don't have a following and I am not making money from what I am writing.  I am doing this for me.  I am writing because I need to, because I have something to say, a story to tell, something....because  I feel compelled to do so.

I didn't venture to Hollywood or New York.  I didn't attend casting calls or send out manuscripts.  I was too busy loving the people in my life and working to support myself.  I will never walk a red carpet or win a Pulitzer Prize.  Do my friends and loved ones think less of me because of that and if they do should they be friends or loved ones?

I am here.  As the Talking Heads so eloquently put it, Home is where I want to be but I guess I'm already there.  I'm here.  Luck, good fortune, coincidence, happenstance... whatever you call it.  I love and am loved.  And thats good enough for me.

Traveling to parts unknown

When I last visited Sonoma, the mustard was in bloom.  Hill after rolling hill dappled in yellow.  The naked twisted vines covered the land.  In the early morning, fog nestled in the valleys.  It was both a romantic and raucous trip as I was traveling with my husband as well as my brother and his wife.

I'm headed back to Sonoma next month, on a very different journey.  I am taking my mother for three days to Healdsburg.  The last trip my mother and I took together was a drive from Virginia to Mississippi for my Great Aunt Dot's funeral.  We listened to Delta Wedding and stopped at Cracker Barrels.

My mother is 22 years older than I.  When I think back upon my 22 year old self, I firmly believe that except in rare instances, no one younger than 30 should be allowed to have children.  Not that I suffered a terrible childhood or that my mother was incapable...

My mother was young, terribly naive and desperately in love.  My father was young, prematurely bitter and jaded, and out for his own glorification.

When they divorced, I was fifteen and wading into the dating pool.  Suddenly, so was my mother.

I have at times felt more like the 4th sister than my mother's first child.  Frequently, family members mistakenly call me Gussie, my aunt who is only 18 years older than I.  My grandaddy always referred to Gran as my mother; "Wait a minute Little Fannie, let me get your mother on the phone".  Gran herself use to tell me that she felt as if I were her child.

So where does that leave my relationship with my mother?

I have always felt a strong connection to my mother, part camaraderie, part protectiveness.  She is funny, warm and engaging.  At times, we have been severely cross with one another and once, terribly angry but never estranged.

Now, though, I find myself confronted with how to define our relationship.  Gran is gone.  Gran was my best friend and confidante but she was also my primary maternal figure.  At 39, do I still need a mother?

I'm not sure but I know this... I feel as though my fabric has been frayed and I am in desperate need of mending.  I cannot live the rest of my life without sharing with someone all that I shared with Gran.  I planned this trip originally for my mother, as her life is riddled with tragedy these days, but I recognize that I want more from this trip than some good wine.

Farewell

It began to rain, a nettling mist that stung my face.  The temperature hovered in the forties but the rain made it feel much colder.  The church itself, all soaring ceiling and polished marble, was cold.  I shivered and pulled my black trench tighter.

There were no flowers; that's what struck me first.  The altar was bare.  The carefully selected hymns, the packed pews did not distract me.  The cold, the rain, the barrenness of it all weighed upon my soul.

There was a mixture of mourners; some catholic, some not.  As there was not a program to follow, those who were not catholic had difficulty following the mass.  Did we sit or stand?  When did we respond to the priest?

I was saddened by it all and yet felt too weary to cry, too spent to sing, too lost to show any emotion.  I wanted to laugh and joke with my cousins, or weep openly.  Instead, I found myself nodding half-heartedly to conversations and staring in the distance.

In my nervous agitation, I ate.  Pimento cheese and egg and olive sandwiches.  Congealed salad and of course, caramel cake.  And more caramel cake.  I ate fried green tomatoes and cheese grits and homemade biscuits.  And more caramel cake.

I came home with Gran's pearls, the graduated string that Grandaddy gave her as a wedding gift almost 70 years ago.  In my mother's car is packed the beautiful green bisque bowl, undulating waves with a white nymph poised atop.  And Gran's red and white china. For me.  And I brought home in my purse her handkerchiefs and the fake diamond ring Grandaddy purchased at Woolworth's on their first date, to fool his friends into thinking they were engaged.

In the Memphis airport, while devouring Corky's BBQ, I remembered, slightly sickened, that I had forgotten to ask for the most important of Gran's things - her recipes.  I called my mother to inquire if I could have them but late last night, my cousin Katie had asked if she could, and they were given to her.  Heartsick, I hung up the phone and silently berated myself for not remembering to ask.  At least I knew that the recipes were valued and in Katie's good hands.

Shortly before turning off my phone to board my plane home, I noticed a voicemail.  Mother had found a stash of Gran's recipe's, all handwritten, and was saving them for me.

It wasn't until today, in the stifling heat of Grandaddy's new apartment, surrounded by the scant few things remaining from their life together, as I took his hand in mine, that I began to cry.  I patted his frail back and kissed his feathery hair.  I inhaled deeply and took in that in all likelihood, I would not see him again.  A million different scenarios, scenes from my childhood, rushed past me.  That was it, of course, I thought as I stood back from him and held his papery hands in mine; with Grandaddy's passing, the last link to the woman who loved me unconditionally, would be gone.  As long as Grandaddy lives, a little piece of Gran is still with me.  I opened my eyes wide to accommodate the tears welling in them.  I took  deep breaths, trying to stave off sobs.  I had filled my emptiness this weekend with food and silly banter and now as I bid Grandaddy goodbye, I realized how little reign I have over life.

I have beautiful things and lovely memories.  I only wish that I didn't yearn for so much more.

disappointed

I can recall vividly the first time I relegated disappointment to memory.  I had lost my first tooth and my grandaddy gave me a dollar.  It was 1976.  I spent the dollar in his real estate office buying a 16 ounce glass bottle of Tab cola.  Was there ever a child more disappointed with a dollar spent?

I am 39 now.  My disappointments reach deeper.  Sometimes I don't even intend to be disappointed but it just crawls up upon me.

My dearest friend and confidante died.  We have planned her memorial for a month.  And yet there are still those in our family who cannot carve out enough time to celebrate her life, her passing and those who are left behind.  I am saddened.  Almost sickened.

I realize that my bond was with Gran was unusual.  I understand that not everyone felt the same way about her that I did... but I also recognize that she left three grieving daughters and a heartsick husband.  Where is the love?

Is it really about how quickly we can dispense with this?  How readily we can dismiss this person, their contributions, their legacy?  Was she so disposable?

Of course, who are memorials really for?  The living.  The widowed.  The heartbroken.  Are they so readily dispensed as well?

I find I am angry.  I cannot fathom why someone cannot give a weekend to grieve, to share, to console.

I am bitter.

I am outraged.

Perhaps I am too close, too connected, too protective.

Or maybe too frightened... here was a saint among women.  And her own kin begrudge her a decent farewell.  Then what of my life?  Who to mourn me?  What will I leave behind?  Greedy children and a u-Haul truck?

A beautiful life has passed before us.  Her lessons are myriad.  Her gifts enumerable.  What is more important than raising a glass in honor of a life well lived?

Hurt.  Beyond all else, I am hurt.

And fearful.

Careful, careful how you tread... you never know where your foot might fall and who would be there to catch you.  Or not.

etouffee!

1 Vidalia onion diced
2 stalks celery diced
1 Bell pepper diced
4 tbsps butter
4 tbsps flour
1/2 cup water
white wine
1/2 cup chopped green onions
salt, white pepper
1 8 oz package crawfish tailmeat
Tabasco

Over medium high heat, make a roux (melt butter, add flour, cook until brown).  Add veggies.  Saute until tender.  Add 1/2 cup water.  Original recipe called for 1/2 cup wine, but I added more... hard to say how much, I wanted a soupy consistency.   Season to taste (but don't use Tabasco yet). Reduce heat, cover, simmer for 15 minutes.  Add crawfish, simmer 5 more minutes.  Serve over steamed Basmati rice, season with Tabasco.

FAIL.  This recipe, not my Gran's, was a colossal disappointment.  Perhaps there was too much flour in the roux, maybe there was not enough salt.  I shudder to think what dinner would've tasted like had I not added the extra wine.  In short, this Etouffee was too thick and not tasty enough.

In a hole in the wall on Royal, there is a fantastic little restaurant called The Alpine.  You step down into the dimly lit room.  Candles flicker and the sound of cold glasses clinking can be heard.  The beer is Dixie.  The food is extraordinary and the price is just right.

Tim and I used to visit New Orleans every year.  I have a fascination with the city that stems from my Gran's upbringing.

Raised in a home on St. Charles, a majority of her family spoke french.  She remembered chasing after the donkey drawn taffy carts on the street.  She remembered Doberge cakes.  She attended an all girls catholic school, dreamed of marrying for love and and wanted to travel.  She was unconventionally pretty, dark haired and petite.

I grew up in many different homes across the southeast, in nondescript little towns that could not boast of any cuisine or architecture.  I remember resenting Sunday School and hating the catholic church.  I dreamed of writing the next great American novel and living in Paris.  I was mousy and petite.

Visiting New Orleans was a connection to Gran.  Each bite of Oysters Rockefeller, each Hurricane (I was too immature to drink Sazeracs), each step down St. Charles made me feel like I was a part of something special...  a part of Gran, a part of New Orleans.

I will keep cooking... and remembering Gran.

Happy Birthday to Me

I was eighteen.  I had a good grade point average and a boyfriend.  That birthday, I received a Patagonia pullover, which I am actually wearing today, and some books by Anne Tyler.  I remember these gifts made me feel especially appreciated, understood.  I also received a pair of rather matronly Tiffany earrings.  The receipt of that gift left me angry and sad but nonetheless eighteen still remains a standout birthday.

My father believed that a blue Tiffany box retained redemptive powers.  By the time I was 21, my lingerie drawer was full of blue boxes.

It is a truly hollow moment when you receive a gift that you know was not expressly chosen for you.  Tiffany boxes, and their contents of course, are not inexpensive.  Though I tried to express gratitude and not disdain, and certainly I did not want to appear the ingrate, I know my face betrayed me.  Fortunately, and not surprisingly, I never opened any Tiffany boxes in my father's presence.

Since eighteen, I have been fortunate.  I have surrounded myself with people who paid attention, who understood nuances and recognized my likes and dislikes, interests and wishes.  Among notable gifts from my birthdays pasts, a red patent leather purse, a book by Gunter Grass, a gold charm bracelet that belonged to Gran, a package of cheery colorful barettes.  Some of these gifts were expensive, others were handed down, purchased at Target, but all were priceless to me.  Each gift reflected a careful choice, thought and consideration.  Some were items I might have never chosen for myself; perhaps the gift was too luxurious, too precious, too sentimental.  Each is still cherished today.

This birthday, which is tomorrow, I will not have gifts to open.  Both my mother and husband were too excited with their purchases to wait and bestow them on the actual birth date.  Both gifts were personal and greatly appreciated.  Of course, there will not be a blue box from Sandy.  I have received two Tiffany boxes since Sandy's death, though neither on my birthday.  I must admit, I don't have the typical feminine reaction to that robin's egg blue though each of those gifts was well chosen.

My favorite gift though, is the one I have given myself.  I have chosen wisely and cultivated incredible relationships.  I have also blindly stumbled into good fortune which has afforded me love and friendships.  Each card and birthday wish from one of these is a better gift than anything that can be contained in a little blue box.

So Happy Birthday to me; may I have another year to love the people who have blessed me with their friendship.

What you have to do

I am starting this post against my better judgement... why write when you aren't what sure you have to say?

Maybe I am taking a page from my friend Pauline's blog www.paulinesblogsstupid.blogspot.com
 but I feel the need to write about where I am.

Pauline, on the cusp of 40... or maybe more, Pauline?  Anyway, Pauline had some questions about her station in life.  Is everyone supposed to be satisfied with what they are doing?  Is anyone satisfied with what they are doing?

I remember waking up in a dead sweat one night my senior year in college... it had occurred to me, in sleep no less, that I could end up in a trailer park.    What was a degree in Classics really going to afford me?  I has studied to learn, not to earn some high paying job.  Now, weeks before graduation, I began to question the intelligence of my decision.

Unfortunately, unlike my classmates in classics, I was not an intellectual.  Academia held no space for me.  What to do, what to do....

I fell into my position in life... I drank and danced and charged and paid, a little bit, and found myself in Washington, DC, surrounded by bright young things.  I conned my way into their midst.

And right when I had given up on love, committed myself to a sketchy occupation, I found Tim.

Yet.  Yet.  Where was I now?  Alone.  With a cat.  In Austin, Texas.  Whiling away my hours at the Austin Museum of Art taking watercolor classes.  Cooking dishes beyond my comprehension.  Volunteering for the most needy non-profit.  But what was I DOING?

And now.  And now, here I am .... raising two children, sheltering a dog and two cats and feeding a husband.  I am foreman for our new addition and a conversationalist blogger and in mourning for my dearly departed grandmother.

They don't tell you that; while they are bandaging your knee, making your dinner, washing your clothes.  Your parents don't tell you that they don't really know what they are doing.  They don't mention that they haven't gotten it all figured out.

You know that moment that you are waiting for?  That event which will lead you to believe that you are an adult?  Guess what?  Keep waiting.

I've married, and birthed.  I've buried and invested.  I've worked and I've begged.  I've parented and I've bought and charged and cooked and cleaned and paid taxes and volunteered.  There is no magic moment.  Get on with living.  Because living will get on without you.

Way to go Pauline.  Your blog is brilliant.  Keep writing.  I know I will.

1 recipe down, 1 funeral to go

Well, let me preface this post by saying dinner was nice but Jambalaya it was not!  Of course, watching my husband's cholesterol, I didn't use anduille and for lack of Tasso, I used regular hickory cured ham.  Reading the hard core recipes from some of Gran's old cookbooks, I learned that a lot of southerners actually use (blech) oysters in their Jambalaya.

Tasso and Anduille aside, we enjoyed our meal.  I'm not sure that I felt any closer to Gran but making something besides my regular staples was nice.  Of course, a steaming bowl goes far to chase away the wicked cold outside.  It is paralyzingly cold.

I hope the different clime will be warmer when I fly to Memphis next Friday.  I hope that I can hold myself together.

Gran's memorial service is next Saturday.  I feel strange about it. Maybe it is because it will have been 4 weeks since her passing when we finally eulogize her.  Maybe it is because I know that I have already shared everything I had with her.  I'm not sure.

I want to believe that I have worked through my grief and that I will be fine next weekend.  Yet, how will I react when I see Grandaddy for the first time in memory without Gran?

There will be no viewing, as Gran donated her body science.  I have been told that I would not have recognized her in her last days.  When I think of her, I picture her as she was in 1976.  Steely gray hair, black highly arched eyebrows, round brown eyes... trim, curvy, petite figure swathed in a navy blue patterned Diane Von Furstenburg dress and blue and white spectator pumps.  She described herself as "handsome".  I see her with her electric broom.  I see the red Club pots and pans with which she used to cook.  I see her making coffee with chicory.

I do not picture a hospital bed or morphine patches.  I cannot see the vacuum used to suction mucus from her mouth.  I rarely remember her without hair.

Cancer took her life but it cannot rob me of my memories.

I hope I smile next Saturday.  I hope I laugh with my cousins and drink Yellow Birds and Champagne and tell funny stories like the one about Gran at the Kentucky Derby when it poured rain and her hat brim dissolved and fell around her neck like a yoke.

Mostly, I hope I walk away with some of her grace, her poise, her strength.  I hope I hold my head a little higher and my childrens hands a little tighter.  Maybe I hope that I can find Gran's God... I don't know.  I will just be happy if I can manage a stiff upper lip, and a smile.

Lazy Man Jambalaya

1 lb smoked sausage, cut diagonally into pieces
2 cups chopped cooked ham
2 chopped celery ribs
2 minced garlic cloves
1 chopped sweet onion
14 ounces beef stock/broth
1 can diced tomatoes
red and black peppers to taste
cups of cooked rice to your own choice of consistency

Saute ingredients sausage through onion.  When onions are translucent and sausage seems sufficiently cooked, add stock and tomatoes.  Boil for 5 minutes.  Reduce heat, add pepper , simmer uncovered for 5 more minutes.  I have made this a day ahead of time and will cook the rice tomorrow night to add to the Jambalaya.  I am not sure yet how much rice I will make.  I know I will add Tabasco before eating it!

Normally I would make some Beer Bread to go with this but Kristen and my friend Lisa Blaisdell sent me some delicious sourdough bread in a condolence package.  I only wish I had some Dixie beer to wash it all down!

The Threefold Mission

I think I will start with Etoufee.  Followed by Chess Squares.  I'm not sure.  The task is daunting.  I am on a threefold mission.

I want to make a new recipe each week.  I want to learn my Gran's favorite dishes.  I want to master creole cooking and overwhelm Kristen and Bruno next New Year's Eve.

I know my triology... celery, onions and green peppers.  I know to use fresh Gulf shrimp.  I know real butter is worth its weight in gold.  These are things my Gran taught me.

I know a good wine can hide a multitude of sins; this I know firsthand.

Gravy.  Red beans and rice.  Turkey tetrazinni.  Red Velvet cake.  Caramel cake.  And a few new things along the way... I'd like to master Bananas Foster, a good Parisian Side Car, Flan, Cheese Grits and homemade buttermilk biscuits.

I can taste Remoulade, Oysters Rockefeller and Yellow Birds as I write.

I want to pour forth a little of her love in each spoonful.

While I am at it, I would love to master the art of wearing pearls with each outfit, using a handkerchief, matching my handbag to my shoes and blessing every stranger who sneezes.

I wish I could use a rosary... but I am not there yet.

Would it be enough if I always used the good silver,  pulled out placemats for each meal, and never failed to serve bread with dinner?

She liked Champagne, little girls in Swiss Dot, black patent leather and cherry blossoms.  Each meal she made, my grandfather declared the best he had ever eaten.

I think I will start with Etoufee.  Whatever else I can master, I will surely try.

Happy New Year

The Blue Moon had risen and the residual snow from weeks past gave a luster in the falling dark.

We began where all good parties start... in the kitchen.  He served me a Parisian Side Car, chilled and shaken.  As always, Kristen was flawlessly beautiful.  Bruno was dutifully attending his dishes.  The aroma from the short ribs filled the kitchen.

Each course was more exquisite than the last.  The delicate blend of spice and seasoning was perfect.  The wines were soulfully paired.

The Gruyere and onion tart was an artful concoction wrapped in delicately puffed pastry.  The cream of asparagus soup was decadent yet light.  The salad of lobster, shrimp and avocado served over wasabi flan was exquisite.  The light lemon sorbet perfectly cleansed our palates in preparation for the richly braised short ribs, whipped potatoes and wilted spinach.  Only the Tahitian vanilla cheesecake could so beautifully complete such a meal.

The evening, punctuated by the incredible courses, leisurely tripped along.  The conversation was effortless and meaningful.  I left buoyed by good company and a full belly.

Today, I rose and prepared the croissant casserole, carefully measuring out the dry mustard and whipping cream.  The scent of ham and cheese was pervasive throughout the house and left the animals curious and irritated.

The rich aroma of coffee enveloped us as soon as we entered Nestor's house.  You could detect sausage and egg cooking.  The pleasant sound of corks popping filled the background.  Bagels piled high, cream cheese, rich coffee cakes and smoked salmon.  Champagne and Bloody Marys.  I brought along the Chess Squares that Kristen had sent me home with the night before.

The warm embraces, gentle kisses, well wishes.  The children running wild.  Time passed and the afternoon sneaked up upon us.

In the last month, I saw my share of grief.  I also benefitted from kindnesses and selfless acts.  Mine is a charmed life.  My demons are far outnumbered.  My friends are legion.

It is with a heavy heart that I embrace 2010, a year without Gran.  Her sage advice and heartfelt help will be sorely missed.  But embrace, I must.  Not to do so would be rude, unjust, callous.  How could I not embrace a future that will include the Wymans, the Valencias, the Freitas, the Stravitz, the Kaupers, the Meehans, the CashHolcombs, and the Jordans?  These people have given me more than I could ever repay.  It is the countless glasses of wine, the lovingly prepared scampi, the hugs, the cards of condolence... it is also the laughter, the tears, the inside jokes.  Gran told me once that her life was rich because she shared it with her friends.  I am so fortunate to have inherited from her.

Salud.  To life well lived.  To 2010.  To the inevitable march of time.  Enjoy.